Philbin: "We got a helluva team in the making'

INDIANAPOLIS -- Joe Philbin is a planner. He's a professor. He's logical. He's not big on emotion. Basically, he's a vulcan without the pointed ears.

He definitely showed the media no self-satisfaction in beating the Indianapolis Colts, 24-20, on the road on Sunday despite it being perhaps his best victory as a Dolphins coach. Indeed, near the end of an emtionless press conference, I asked him if he was even happy he won.

"Absolutely, yeah" he said looking away, "real proud of the guys. Can't you tell?"

His wife, standing off to the side watching the presser, was among those who laughed.

But just before that presser, in the confines of the locker room right after the game, Philbin actually said something that was interesting. Yes, he read his bullet points off his card to the players as he often does in his postgame speech -- told you he's professorial -- but when he turned away from his notes he announced to his players:

"We got a helluva team in the making!"

Read that again.

"We got a helluva team in the making!"

Now, it's one thing if that's outspoken Pete Carroll saying that because Carroll looks at a Kia and thinks it has a chance to be a helluva Cadillac. That also wasn't emotional Jimmy Johnson. That wasn't Rex Ryan bragging as has been his style.

That was understating, undemonstrative, stoic Joe Philbin going all bright future on us.

And that speaks ... No, that yells ... It yells volumes about what the coach thinks is the celing for his young team.

As I wrote for Monday's Miami Herald, the Dolphins aren't quite yet a certain playoff team. You shouldn't be buying Super Bowl tickets yet. But the Dolphins now are relevant. They are rolling and about to gain more attention because they finally have playmakers as the game-clinching sack by Phillip Wheeler (Courtesy a Joe Rimkus photo) showed.

And they're growing and becoming a good team.

I'm an outsider and I can see it.

Philbin, on the inside, obviously thinks it.

This team is headed in a good direction. And by the time the journey is done, the Dolphins might indeed be "a helluva team."